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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story inspired by a memory of yours.

Posted in Nonfiction on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 90 stories

“THE RADIO” by Liliana Nealon

Submitted to Contest #140

It was always the sound of his voice that called me to the radio. Too young to understand the words, I was not too little to realize my parent’s reaction to the voice on the radio. At times, there was also the sound of a woman’s voice, which they equally hated. From my bedroom, I knew the radio was about to go on by the sound of the heavy wooden shutters at the front of our small flat, which dad pulled down a few minutes before they sat down to listen. Then, daddy’s steps toward the small entrance hall, a small sofa, and a side table with ...

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“Everything I Have Is Yours” by Linda Boroff

Submitted to Contest #140

       “You’ll never guess who called me this afternoon,” I can recall my mother saying. It was dinnertime, and she was at the stove spooning something lumpy from a frying pan into Tupperware. We — my father, my brother Lester, Bradley Willis and I — were at the opposite end of the kitchen around a pink and gray formica dinette.         “Who?” asked Bradley Willis, mouth full of steak.         “Why Helen Leam,” said my...

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“The Girl with the Ocean Eyes” by Lucia Wallen

Submitted to Contest #140

There are people who happen to the world and people who let the world happen to them. She was the ladder. It was a cold November night, the kind of cold that made you ask the people around you if they had a jacket, but not the kind that made you think to grab your own before you left. She bought a dress the week before; loose at the knees, tight at the waist, and hugged her figure in the most flattering of ways. She'd grown up ashamed, told to cover up, told to stop being so perverse, that girls like her were simply asking for it. But she wa...

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“Mary's Journey” by David Blackburn

Submitted to Contest #140

                         Mary’s Journey       by David Blackburn                                                    &nbsp...

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“Anna” by Ambar Sánchez

Submitted to Contest #140

Anna learned that every legend holds some truth. She grew up reading tales and scary stories just to try to make sense of something she couldn't really understand. She didn't believe in ghosts or in any of the spirits and monsters she read about, she was just looking for an answer.She soon would leave her hometown for college, but if she didn't clear her mind before leaving, she feared the past would haunt her.She never told anyone about the memories that lurked in her mind and, sometimes, even her dreams. She was not superstitious, but she ...

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“The Blue Chair” by Lorraine Cobcroft

Submitted to Contest #140

A little fabric tear, that’s all it was. Yet it changed the appearance of the chair, and it changed me. Changed how I dealt with the loss of her. Such a seemingly insignificant little thing. Many would have thought my reaction odd... extreme, perhaps. Excessively emotional. But that chair was special. For thirty-five years, I had loved it as I loved no other treasure I had ever possessed. It spoke to me with words my mother could never say... words every daughter needs to hear. It was an old cane chair. I bought it for one dollar at a seco...

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“Reflections From a Skyline” by Karen Kerekes

Submitted to Contest #140

Reflections From a Skyline Every once in a while, I take that trek back to my old neighbourhood.  To come home, to my first home. The place where I was born and raised for twenty-three years.  Where I first experienced the fragrant scent of lilacs and discovered beauty amid purple irises, weeping willows and a towering white birch tree. Where I first learned how to throw a baseball and skipped and played in the days of innocence when there lived a Santa Claus, and where I wept at my awakening to life’s harsh realities and unexpe...

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“Moments ” by Emma Smith

Submitted to Contest #140

“Sit down in there!” I can still hear her voice when I look back on my adolescent years. Those words will forever ring in my ear when I think of Aunt Minnie yelling at me, my brother, and two sisters as we peeked around the corner while she prepared bowls of ice cream. We laughed hard as we tried to guess which one of us would get “the spoon” that neither of us wanted. Aunt Minnie had what was known as a sugar spoon. It was round with a tarnished gold color and looked like no other spoon we’d ever seen. I’m not sure why it tickled us so, but...

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“Sushila Auntie” by Chander Dhingra

Submitted to Contest #140

SUSHILA AUNTY She had no relationship with our family but we called her auntie, Sushila Auntie. Our father was a dear elder brother to her. She once said to me, ‘what your father has done for me, only a true elder brother would do to his sister...he is my dear Bhai Jee.'  Sushila Auntie was a victim of India's partition and creation of Islamic Pakistan. She was from a town, known as a ‘city of wrestlers’ and famous for its food. She had built a one-room apartment in Himalayan town and named it ' Sushila Nivas'. It had on...

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“Grass Stains, Ghosts, and a Missing Chicken ” by Kirsty A

Submitted to Contest #140

"Come onnnnn, let's goooooo," Olivia called down the hallway. Her blonde head poked around the corner towards her brother's closed bedroom door. Without warning, David flew from his room and tore down the hallway past Olivia, through the kitchen and out the back door. Olivia squealed and ran after the boy-shaped tornado. A game! And it's only just after sunrise!  "Bye, Mum!" David called.   Standing at the kitchen sink, their mother stuck her head out the kitchen window as David and Olivia ran under the sill. Their attention fo...

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“The Baseball Card” by Troy Lowman

Submitted to Contest #140

Thanksgiving dinner was coming to a close. Near the kitchen sink were recently demolished plates of turkey, mash potatoes, and stringbean salad in the home of one Mary Leeton. Mary, the matriarch of two grown children and four grandchildren was getting help from the oldest of the grandkids in rinsing and shuttling her good dishware neatly into the dishwasher. Happy to have the help but even happier to spend a few quality moments with them, Mrs. Leeton is in her glory. As this transpires in the kitchen, her two adult children, Trey and Taylo...

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“The Staircase” by Pauline Whitchurch

Submitted to Contest #140

It was Autumn I believe, 1971, a long time ago. Almost five decades ago as I write this story.   I had just graduated high school in Northern California, so that dreadful part of my life was now behind me. Don’t get me wrong, high school was OK, it was just not the high point of my life filled with great times and lifelong friends.  I could not wait to get out into the world. I had a fantastic job at a title company, part time during school and full time in the summers for almost 3 years at that time. ...

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“Flight Of The Humans” by The Musicalman24601

Submitted to Contest #140

"BRRRRRRRRRRRING!" I rushed out with everyone else as soon as that bell rang out. To all of us, that was our freedom call in the afternoon. The bell told us to spend the final 45 minutes of our school day outside on the playground. The playground had been many things for all of us; it had been a castle to fend of the field dwellers which surrounded us, it had been a spaceship that we all managed to gather otherworldly materials to save the earth, and it had even been the massive bank which one group protected & others tried to rob. ...

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“The Boulder” by Magdalena Brynard

Submitted to Contest #140

The Boulder By Magdalena Brynard The sky churned from golden hues, to amber and drawing to a close in a deep crimson. A steaming mug of coffee sat beside me on the table. I was fond of watching the sun set and rise over the ridge surrounding our ranch. My fingers absentmindedly searched my face as I stared ahead; they stumbled over a small rift in the curve of my chin. A sudden flash of light engulfed my senses as my mind awoke to a smooth white field surrounding me. Ice cold spittle shot me in the face initiating a riot of sensations...

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“Scarred for Life” by Michael Lewis

Submitted to Contest #140

The first major upset in my life occurred when I was nine months old, although I was, of course, far too young to remember it. It was during the middle of February 1948; I caught a cold. My mother put a saucepan of milk on top of the stove and lit the gas. The liquid is heated to a pleasantly warm temperature, after which a quantity of butter is added. In those days, warm milk and butter was Glasgow’s general homeopathic medicine for any child’s nose that ran with two green streams. In winter, the two green streams would become a river notic...

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🌟 Similar prompts

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Contest #140

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Title: Old Soul

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